EdD Knowledge Forum Convenes in Georgia, Seeks New Members
The 18th convening of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) took place October 24-26 on the campus of Augusta University (GA). Faculty members from 80 member colleges and schools of education explored the program theme “Inquiry as Practice: Understanding the Research Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions Scholarly Practitioners Need to Improve Problems of Practice.”
Rick Mintrop of the University of California-Berkeley challenged the group to consider design-based inquiry as a potential signature pedagogy for preparing professional practitioners. “We should spend design energy only on ‘wicked problems’ for which there is no current conventional solution,” he urged.
Convenings are the signature activity of many Carnegie Foundation programs, conveying the central feature of coming together to share and learn. In addition to listening to guest speakers, attendees collaborated in learning-exchange breakout sessions, CPED Improvement Group meetings, and informal meal times. This network-based format supports the CPED mission to strengthen, improve, support, and promote its framework through continued collaboration and investigation.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of last month’s convening was the presentation of CPED’s fifth Dissertation in Practice (DiP) award to Jimmie Walker of Johns Hopkins University (MD), whose dissertation Brain-Targeted Early Childhood Beginnings: A Case Study in India closely examined how a neuro-education approach to early childhood education came to be implemented in one school in India. In her work, she identified factors that contributed to the school’s success and ways to bring those factors back to Alamo Heights, Texas, where she is academic dean for elementary education. The DiP award recognizes a CPED-influenced program graduate whose dissertation in practice demonstrates evidence of a scholarly endeavor that has impacted a complex problem of practice and aligns with the CPED principles.
Next June, CPED will mark its 10th anniversary with a convening at the University of Pittsburgh, the organization’s headquarters. Lee Shulman, president emeritus of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, will join the group to reflect on these 10 years of change. CPED also plans to present its first-ever Program of the Year Award.
CPED currently numbers more than 80 member institutions working to transform the education doctorate into the degree of choice for aspiring leaders. In advance of the 10th anniversary, the CPED board of directors is seeking to expand the consortium by 25 new institutions. Read the call for new members here.
For more information about the work of CPED, visit http://www.cpedinitiative.org/.
Jill A. Perry, research associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh, is executive director of CPED.
Tags: higher education, program improvement, research
